Product Description

Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life, and offer solutions to them too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: in the Mid-West USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them, and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions. Along the way, Dasgupta provides an intelligent and accessible introduction to key economic factors and concepts such as individual choices, national policies, efficiency, equity, development, sustainability, dynamic equilibrium, property rights, markets, and public goods.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17658 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Diplomat, Winter 2007
'The book is in a fascinating series of Very Short Introductions.'

Review
An excellent introduction... presents mathematical and statistical findings in straightforward prose. (Financial Times )

I wish more people would read Dasgupta's book, and I wish more economists would write variations on its theme. It is a model specimen. (www.economicprincipals.com )

The text is direct, rigorous and thought-provoking. It provides an intelligent, rigorous and readable introduction to economics. (London Book Review.com )

About the Author
Partha Dasgupta is Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John's College. His book, An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution (OUP, 1993) was praised as 'a tour de force... a model of good economics' (Joseph Stiglitz) and 'philosophically sophisticated, empirically well-informed, ambitious and lively' (James Griffin).

Customer Reviews

Substandard and a waste of reading time
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has bought this book thinking it would rid me of my ignorance of the economic crises that have beset the world. This book doesn't really explain the principles people find confusing and befuddling: Interest rates, exchange rates, hedge funds, securitisation, bonds, and the stock market (among others). Instead it tackles a few basic principles regarding lending and how we all have our price etc.. It fails to clear up most things, and the best parts of the book (the ones regarding development of countries) are mostly covered in a geography GCSE and should be expanded upon more in a longer book. Even if what you want from this book is an introduction to economics for an economics degree or an A- Level I wouldn't recommend it, as most of what it deals with is very intuitive and you most probably already know (i.e. families in poorer countries have more children so the women often don't work). To sort out the more confusing elements to economics and to explain the current economic crisis I would recommend The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, or perhaps All You Need To Know About The City instead.

Disappointing-title should be economics of the rich and poor
Before I start I just want to say that the author is a excellent authority on economics, and apart from a few books (including this one), OUP's Very Short Introductions have been excellent.

However, I found a lot of the book went off on a unique, but albeit irrelevant course to what was supposed to be centralised in the book, that is standard economics. Too much of the book was on demographics, politics and why there are rich people, and why there are poor people (in an economical way). Economics is closely integrated into these factors, but all the book was about the contrasts in living standards between two children Becky and Desta; most if not all of the reasons for this I had learnt in Geography pre-GCSE and at GCSE at school.
The limitations in this are obvious: we don't really get to see much more of economics than how it is important to analyse living standards.

I went to this book to try and understand the economic terms that bombard me from the TV and in the nespapers, and more of the economics of daily life, and also of economic crises, but I didn't find it in this book. I think anyone considering a book on how economics makes people rich and poor should go for this book, but otherwise, including my reasons above, this book is not good.

Very disappointing
Are you, like me, a newspaper reader who wants to know why a house crisis in the US causes unemployment in Europe, why big banks are collapsing, or how trillions of dollars have evaporated in stock markets? Do you want to understand how multi-billion bailout schemes are supposed to work, why the price of oil shoots up to $140 then collapses a few months later, or why things like deficit so much percent of GDP matter? Do you want a basic understanding of economics but have neither the time nor the inclination to plough through 1000 page textbooks? Then this book will not help you. I must admit, I was intrigued by the Prologue introducing Becky's rich world and Desta's poor world, so I persevered but with little reward. To give you an example: after a rather elaborate argument involving Nash equilibria, game theory and an infinite geometric series, we reach the stunning conclusion that mutual trust is a driver of economic growth. Wow! I won't spoil the ending, but the bottom line (literally) is no more than a restatement of common sense. This Very Short Introduction made me none the wiser.